


A Little Faith

by Tjerra14



Series: The Broken, The Whole [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Attack on Haven, Budding Love, Chant of Light, F/M, Hope, In Your Heart Shall Burn, Mage Inquisitor (Dragon Age), More angst, POV Cullen Rutherford, Total Obliviousness, pinch of fluff, story spoilers, yup I started another thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:47:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25150381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tjerra14/pseuds/Tjerra14
Summary: While the Inquisition celebrates the closing of the Breach, Commander Cullen Rutherford can't shake the feeling that was the easy part. He soon finds out just how right he was.
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Series: The Broken, The Whole [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1708717
Kudos: 8





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> My internship separates me from my PC so neither gaming nor (digital) drawing are quite available to me to spend my free time with. So I'm currently working on establishing somewhat of a writing routine, and what better to do that with than some angst?

_[A letter found in the Black Emporium, allegedly snatched from a Fereldan estate rumoured to belong to the former Inquisitor and her family._

_The letters tilt randomly in all directions and are of varying sizes. Words are misspelt with no continuity throughout. Some are incomplete or altogether illegible and can only be guessed.]_

Dear Aidan,

I hope this letter finds you and Moira well.

You might wonder why I write to you after all this time. You might wonder if this is truly me—well, you can probably see it is. A battlefield, you called it, slaughtered letters and mutilated words. I’m sorry you have to trudge through my carnage again, but I couldn’t find you any other way.

I don’t know what you’ve heard about me or my role at the Conclave. All kinds of things, I imagine. Maybe you took them for lies and decided to ignore them. Maybe you believed them and moved on regardless. I can’t fault you for that. Moira was right in her caution: I have dragged you into this. Into everything ever since the Circle. Leaving me as far behind as possible was the most sensible choice.

That year away from the Circle… I’m not proud of what it made of me. I told myself that the things I did were necessary. I told myself there was no alternative to the things I made you do. Moira knows I was mistaken. She always knew. If she was the one who made you leave me behind, as I imagine, please give her my thanks, even if she does not want it.

I do not ask for your forgiveness. I know I can’t be forgiven.

Nevertheless, I beg you to hear me out. Not for my sake, but for the sake of the people we’ve sworn to protect.

You must have heard that I survived the explosion at the Conclave. They say I stepped out of a rift. That means I must have walked the Fade. I do not remember it. I was taken prisoner by Chantry forces, until they set me free eventually. I am guilty of many crimes, but the murder of the Divine was not one of them.

You know that. I must believe that you do.

I am part of the Inquisition now. The Maker put me here for a reason, and I feel like this is a way to make up for the things I did. We work to restore order to the continent and now that the Breach is sealed, we might be a step closer to our goal.

It is a worthy cause. We do not seek power, or wealth, or land; only peace. Though our forces are growing with each passing day, our numbers are still small. More than ever, we need people like you and Moira.

I need you.

I miss you, Aidan.

I’m sorry I just left without another word that morning at the Conclave. I should’ve—

_[The letter ends abruptly. Below, the handwriting changes. Tidy, neat letters form a harsh contrast to the chaos above. The paper is crinkled in multiple places, as if it got wet before.]_

Ser,

it is with deepest regret that I have to inform you that _[crossed out]_ the Herald— _[crossed out]_ Lady Trevelyan— _[crossed out]_ your friend— _[ink has pooled around the upper part of the first letter, as if the writer hesitated to draw the line]_ Imira has fallen in the battle of Haven.

During the last moments of calm before her final fight, she entrusted this letter to me for safekeeping and asked me to see it delivered should she not return. I am sorry I cannot deliver it with better news.

Her loss grieves the Inquisition, and me personally, deeply. When all seemed lost, she still had the heart to fight on and bring about the distraction that secured the lives of hundreds. Her sacrifice saved the Inquisition. Her greatness— _[The following is crossed out repeatedly and illegible.]_

Unfortunately, I did not know her as well as you did, ser, for I only had the honour to meet her after the tragedy that unfolded at the Conclave. She was a prisoner then, a suspect in the murder of the Most Holy, Divine Justinia. Despite the accusations and threats mistakenly made against her, she readily agreed to help in our quest to close the Breach, a quest in which the Mark the Maker bestowed upon her hand was instrumental. Even though she was soon offered her freedom, she decided to stay with us of her own volition.

Indeed, without her efforts, all of us—and, subsequently, all of Thedas—might have died there and then. During the darkest hours, she became our hope and light. Countless men tell tales of her unparalleled selflessness, of how she shielded them from harm in desperate situations, and I can personally attest to that their accounts are not exaggerated in the slightest.

Please excuse my impertinence when I urge you to discredit the rumours the Chantry has spread about her, for they are all lies born out of fear or, in some cases, maliciousness. In all the time I have known her, she has never given cause for anything other than admiration and respect. Know that, even though it is but a small comfort, the Inquisition will see to it that she will be remembered as the hero that she was. In her name, we will continue our fight. Her sacrifice will not be in vain.

Forgive me, ser, for I have failed to protect her, and bring her back to you.

Cullen Rutherford, Commander of the Inquisition

_[There is a comment in the margins, in a third hand, hurried and dense.]_

Guess Mother didn’t die after all, huh?

_[A note is attached to the letter.]_

I broke into the Inquisitor’s home and all I got was this lousy parchment. For future endeavours: Beware of the dogs. They do not accept treats from strangers.


	2. Toll of War

Above them, a river of Light

Before them the throne of Heaven, waiting

Beneath their feet

The footprints of the Maker,

And all around them echoed a vast silence.

_Threnodies 8_

And I'm ready to go

If you're already there

Saw your trail in the snow

Did you find our way to freedom?

It's the last day I'm here

So can you hear the sky fall down?

Collapsing over ravaged ground? 

Katatonia, _Residual_

**Haven, 9:41 Dragon**

The Chantry was deserted except for a lay sister toasting him as he passed by. At his frown, she seemed to sober quickly, picked herself up from the floor and hurried back outside towards the music and the laughter and more ale she could drown her embarrassment in.

In here, only the candle flames swayed drunkenly in the draught that never died down in Haven’s Chantry. Some of the Chanters claimed it was the breath of the Maker, blowing through and blessing the halls. The truth was far more mundane, Cullen suspected: up in the rafters, a small window was broken, and no one had bothered to make repairs. It was also the obvious explanation for the snow that crowned the statue of maternal Andraste during storms, but the Chanters’ imagination knew no bounds. Frozen tears of the Maker, they made it out to be, lamenting how His creation has turned on each other. A miracle right in front of their eyes.

Cullen had a hard time believing in miracles. He preferred to believe in what he’d seen: the goodness and kindness of people, their pursuit of betterment. Their greed and abysses. Facing life’s demons, he, too, had looked for an unmistakable sign the Maker watched over him, that He cared. And maybe, after years of dashed hopes, they had witnessed one.

The Herald.

He still wondered if what they made her out to be was wishful thinking, a product of their desperation. They’d found her in the ashes of the temple, and the soldiers who did had reported she’d fallen out of a rift, but they’d just seen thousands burn. Who could say it hadn’t just been a story they’d agreed upon because the truth was too horrible to accept? No one walked the Fade and survived. No one wielded power over the rifts, or the Breach itself.

No one risked their life for their captors, and strangers who’d rather see her dead.

The Herald had done all those things, and more.

‘Impossible’ was the word that sprang to mind when Cullen saw her, ‘unreal’ another one, but then she would act so real, so undeniably _human_ he could catch a glimpse of the person they’d buried beneath their reverence. There were flaws to her perfection, and he could sense them in her crooked smile, her quips, her laughter, too loud at times, as if it hid the sadness and the silences of her past.

Nevertheless, wherever she went, whatever she did, she left hope and if not peace, at least a chance for it, and he looked up to her, to the miracle that she was.

She disliked that notion.

“I don’t know why the Maker saved me,” she’d say. “Or why He gave me the Mark. But He knows what I have done, and believe me, He didn’t spare me because I’m holy.”

Holy or not, she’d closed the Breach, and it was all the proof the Inquisition had needed. The Maker favoured them, and their quest for justice and order, and the realisation alone had lifted their spirits immeasurably.

The spirits of most, that was.

Cullen hadn’t felt like joining the festivities. The Herald was nowhere to be seen, either, but that was to be expected. By now he knew her well enough to know he would have to look for her somewhere along the fringes, huddled in a quiet corner with a glass of wine, maybe, or sharing a tale or two with her soldiers. Restraint was her second nature. It was her feast, however, so the sight of her in the Chantry’s back room, mouthing the words she was writing down on a piece of parchment, was a surprising one. Entering the room, he cleared his throat and she looked up.

“Your Worship.”

She answered with a sigh, “Please. How many times do I have to ask you to call me—”

“—Imira.” Her name was still a stranger to his tongue, its syllables all bulky and obscure. Informality made it a foreign language. “Why aren’t you outside with the others?”

“Should I be?”

“It’s your celebration.”

“To them, maybe.”

There was an edge of annoyance to her voice and Cullen assumed he wasn’t the first to ask about her lack of enthusiasm tonight. He could almost picture it in his head: like him, she’d stayed away from where the merriment was the liveliest, only to soon find out that to the others, her lurking seemed to beg for countless attempts to cheer her up. To be alone, she’d fled into the Chantry, to all those maps and scrolls and the promise of a headache, all preferable company to the overwhelming happiness reigning Haven, and now he had cut short the peace she’d been looking for.

She wouldn’t tolerate being alone together.

“I can leave,” said Cullen.

“No, no, it’s alright,” Imira waved him aside and put down her quill. “I think I could use a break anyway. Josie says practice makes it easier, but so far I’m not convinced.” A smile stole into her expression. “Unless you’re here to talk me into a drinking game?”

“Maker, no! I’ve been trying to get away from the drinking games!”

“You’ve come to the right place, then,” she chuckled. “All I can offer you is ink and offended paper.”

Cullen raised an eyebrow. Jests about her literacy were a fine line he avoided to walk whenever possible, even when she initiated them herself. Studying in Kinloch Hold, one of his comrades had faced similar troubles, and his fears and frustrations had made him a welcome target. Children were cruel like that. Although Cullen had never actively participated in the harassment, he’d felt he was just as deserving of punishment as the others when it finally came. He’d looked away. He’d let it happen. The discomfort she tried to cover with light-hearted comments reminded him of his comrade’s tears, and how his failure had hurt the boy. He would not fail again.

“Oh, come on. There’s no need to be polite. You know it’s bad.”

Polite, she called it, as if her embarrassment wasn’t rooted in something deeper, a sense of shortcoming. As if he didn’t notice how she avoided reading and writing unless it was absolutely necessary and tried to hide the results for as long as she could.

“It’s fine. I can read it.” _Mostly_ , he added in silence, and she laughed like she’d heard him.

“Josie assigned me a scribe.”

Their ambassador had gone over her head with that decision, knowing Imira’s pride would have forbidden it. Even though the scribe’s arrival was followed by a heated discussion about misspent funds, her reports had increased in length, depth and frequency, a clear sign she was glad for the assistance, after all.

“He seems to neglect his duties,” Cullen noted.

“I sent him away,” she explained the man’s absence. “There are some things better kept between writer and recipient.”

It was personal correspondence then, he concluded, more reason to leave her to her own devices. Despite her assurances, he felt like an intruder, about to be reprimanded and removed for wilfully ignoring her retreat.

She didn’t show the slightest inclination to end the conversation.

“Aside from a distinct lack of drinking games, what brought you here?”

“I’ve been told my face sours the mood.”

“Varric?”

He nodded, grimacing. “‘Cheer up, Curly, no one died!’ As if that wasn’t exactly the problem. All those people we lost since the Conclave, who sacrificed themselves so we could close the Breach. They died to enable us for a greater fight, and it never came. You closed the Breach without incident. I mean, I’m glad we didn’t suffer any more losses, but it just seems—”

“—too easy,” Imira finished his sentence. “Almost as if we’ve overlooked something.”

Her words came as a surprise, giving him pause. At the same time, he felt foolish. That she’d never voiced her doubts before didn’t mean she didn’t have them. Leadership was an isolating affair, he had learned in Kirkwall. It demanded a show of strength: for her followers to encourage their faith, their trust; her allies to secure their loyalty. Strength for their enemies, to incite their fear. She’d donned it like armour, and blinded by its gleam, Cullen had ignored the vulnerability she guarded within.

_Why has she allowed me to see it?_

There’d been other times, before, little dents in the armour, barely noticeable. Always had she been injured, hurting, and caught unawares. Contrary to today, her weakness had not been of her own choosing.

Muffled yelling forced its way through the thick wooden door, but Cullen paid it no mind. Some drunk argument, most likely, as they were often found at the bottoms of tankards. Maybe the lay sister had returned with friends and found her old place had been taken by a group of soldiers disagreeing on Andraste’s hair colour.

“You…think so, too.”

“Varric keeps complaining I’m a pessimist,” snorted Imira and picked up the letter to see if the ink had dried. “On the other hand, there was a hole in the sky, my hand tried to kill—”

Cumulating in a grand crescendo, the shouting match outside reached its final stage, then broke off without warning. Eerie calm filled the Chantry, as if the building itself held its breath. A general rest.

He felt a cold tinge of anxiety tugging at his stomach, something wasn’t right, something had happened, and by the look on Imira’s face as her head perked up, she felt the same. They locked eyes, brown on blue, and as they remained in fearful expectation it dawned on him that what he’d heard had been no argument at all but a prelude to whatever would break the silence: A cry, a warning.

The tolling of the bells.

It was a faint noise at first, irregular and hesitant, as if the person ringing them didn’t know how to use the ropes. That didn’t last for long, however, and soon the Chantry trembled underneath the chimes.

“Did the guards have too much to drink or are we under attack?” Her tone was light, cheerful, even, but the haunted look that crossed her eyes betrayed her. They both knew the answer, and they both knew what it meant.

Cullen had feared the day ever since they first set up camp in Haven. He’d seen the moment in his nightmares—the Inquisition had enemies, and any peace they enjoyed was an illusion at best. Even though the fighting had never quite made its way up the mountain passes after the initial slaughter at the Temple, Cullen had always known it wouldn’t last. War found its soldiers.

Now it had found them.

“Couldn’t they have waited?” Imira complained. He wanted to agree, add a quip of his own, but he found his throat too dry to manage more than a pathetic rasping sound.

With a heavy sigh, she tucked away the letter, got up and grabbed her cloak from the chair’s armrest. He envied her composure. It looked so natural on her, and it had to be, for her past forbade the experience and training he had. The templars had taught him to confine his fear to a corner of his mind where it couldn’t do harm, but no matter how lenient Ostwick Circle had been, they wouldn’t, couldn’t have allowed her to be part of those lessons. You didn’t train a mage to be a soldier. Fear of injury, or death, was a useful tool, and you didn’t want them to master it. And yet, they still had the cruelty to send their charges to assist a lord’s soldiers in petty squabbles over land and honour.

Maybe Ostwick had done the same to her, before it fell. Maybe that was why she’d survived, why she was such a capable fighter. It made her dangerous. It made her someone he wanted at his side in the battle to come.

“Let’s see who—”

The door flew open. Cullen’s hand leapt to his side and in a well-trained, fluid motion, he drew his sword, bringing the steel in between them and the new arrival. Its tip came to rest at the throat of a black-haired man clad in such outrageously expensive finery that despite their best efforts, the dirt and snow clinging to it couldn’t hide its worth. Even his fur-trimmed cloak looked like it was better suited to be paraded around a palace than a mountain village in the Frostbacks. 

“Dorian!”

 _Dorian._ Cullen had heard that name before. Originally, it had been nothing more than a small mention in Imira’s report on the events of Therinfal, but it had garnered Leliana’s interest, so the mention had grown into a two-hour long discussion whether the Tevinter mage would make a valuable ally. When they tried to arrange another meeting, the messenger had returned reporting he’d found the rebel mages had left Redcliffe to its rightful arl, and the king. 

What had prompted the man to seek them out now, amidst the tolling of the bells?

Behind him, a red-faced soldier came running, his uniform dishevelled and stained. By the smell, the dark spots on his gambeson were ale, both fresh and already ingested once.

“I’m sorry, Your Worship,” the soldier said, panting. “We couldn’t keep him from—”

“It’s fine,” she said and gently put a hand on Cullen’s arm. He gave in to the pressure and lowered his weapon but refused to take his eyes off the mage. “I know him.”

_Do you?_

The man _had_ disappeared under mysterious circumstances, after all, and his timing was curious, to say the least. Who was to say he was still willing to ally himself with the Inquisition? Who could be sure he wasn’t here with friends, and they were the very reason the bells had turned their festivities into panic?

“Well, that’s quite the warm welcome,” Dorian laughed nervously and rubbed his throat, leaving a thin red smear on bronze where Cullen’s sword had broken the skin. “You should rein in your guard here.”

“You should either consider heeding my soldiers’ orders or, you know, polite knocking. Less confusion that way. Less,” Imira nodded at the cut on his neck, “misunderstandings.”

Dorian looked at his fingers and grimaced. “So brash, you Southerners.”

“What brings you here?” Imira went on. “Last time we met, you wanted to return to Redcliffe to watch your countrymen so they wouldn’t get ‘funny ideas’, as you called it, with the rebel mages?”

“And to no one’s surprise, they did get funny ideas. As you might recall, I told you that would happen should you prefer to attend your little noble’s congregation instead of dealing with a Tevinter cult invading the South. The rebel mages you refused to meet are part of the Venatori now. I left as soon as I found out where they were going to warn you, but my horse and the mountains didn’t agree. So, I’m fashionably late, I’m afraid. You’re under attack.”

“We’ve noticed,” Cullen said pointedly. He couldn’t quite decide what he disliked more: was it the impertinence with which the man had walked into their camp, expecting them to tolerate his trespass, or how he, a stranger, an outsider, questioned the Inquisition’s, the Herald’s decisions?

The Tevinter ignored him as well as Imira’s raised eyebrow. “They follow something called the Elder One.”

“Some _thing_?”

“You’ll understand once you see it.”

The way to the gates was lined with chaos. Pilgrims shouted in terror and confusion as they stumbled towards the familiar comfort of the Chantry. Soldiers bellowed orders and ran to man the walls, but their efforts were only marginally more organised than those of the pilgrims. Villagers hastily barred their doors. A little boy stood crying amidst toppled stools and clattered, half-eaten plates. Cullen would’ve overlooked him had Imira not stopped.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she said softly, kneeling and taking the boy’s trembling hands into hers. “It’s alright. It’s alright. What’s your name?”

He couldn’t answer as his sobs grew even more violent, shaking his entire body. Imira sighed.

“He should be inside the Chantry, or better yet, with his parents, but—”

“I can do it,” offered Dorian and, without waiting for her approval, held out a hand. “Come, little man. Let’s find your parents.”

“Thank you,” said Imira and got up. “Let’s move, Cullen.”

He followed her to the ramparts, trying to ignore the tingling on his tongue. _It’s fine, she knows what she’s doing,_ he told himself. But did she? She’d just allowed a stranger to roam free in their camp. With a defenceless child. During an attack. How could she trust the man like that? When they climbed the stairs to the walls, he asked, “You think it’s wise to let him out of your sight? You don’t know his intentions.”

“Dorian wouldn’t harm a child.”

“No, but there’s more than children here.”

“True, but— _Maker._ ”

Cullen reached the top of the stairs and froze. A cloaked figure stood on a rock across the lake, unmoving with a staff in their hands. _Watching._ And moving up next to them… It was a creature no living being should ever lay eyes upon. Easily twice the size of a man, it would tower even over the tallest Qunari, and every inch of its body was as twisted and cursed as if the Maker Himself had cast it down from the Heavens in anger. Neither darkness nor distance could obscure the sickness clinging to its pale flesh, rotten and dried and peeled back where pieces of armour pierced through it. The metal had long become a part of the body it once had protected. Red veins traversed its spindly arms, glowing eerily in the moonlight as if lyrium coursed through them.

He’d never seen anything like it. There had been drawings of darkspawn in Kinloch Hold’s library, and some of them had looked similar to this creature, but Cullen couldn’t remember them being described as this large. This grotesque. None of them had _red lyrium_ growing out of their heads.

“Is that—”

Wordlessly, Imira pointed at an opening in the treeline where the pass lead into the valley. Lights danced over the snow and disappeared in the forest’s shadow, one after another, too many to count. An endless stream of torches.

They were thousands.

“There’s the greater fight,” Imira whispered hoarsely. “Do you think we have a chance?”

She looked so tired all of a sudden. Small. _Afraid._ He wanted to calm her, calm himself, pretend that everything was going to be alright, but he knew she wouldn’t believe him if he tried. No matter how bitter it was, she preferred the truth.

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

She _deserved_ the truth. This was a fight they couldn’t run from, and it could very well be their last. There could be no doubt that she was aware. From beneath her cloak, she produced a crumpled parchment Cullen recognised as the letter she’d been working on earlier.

“Could you…could you see to it that it reaches its destination, just in case? It’s not quite finished yet, but I’m sure you’ll find the right words.”

His first instinct was to refuse. _There’s no need_ , he wanted to say, _you can finish it later,_ and _you didn’t want your scribe to see it, why are you giving it to me_ , but the plea in her eyes silenced those thoughts. While his place in the coming battle was back here in the relative safety of Haven’s walls, away from the fighting, hers was in the thick of it. Her blade would strike first. It would fall first should the worst come to pass, and she knew the odds. Denying the request would be a cruelty he couldn’t bear to inflict upon her.

Cullen accepted the letter and tucked it away in the pouch on his belt. There was only one thing left to do.

“On your command, Your Worship.”

Looking out into the valley, Imira took a deep breath, and with the rise and fall of her shoulders, something changed about her. Her weariness dissipated, her frame straightened and grew, and her fear was replaced by determination. The air around her trembled with magic, making his hair stand on end. When she turned to him again, her gaze was steel. She gave a sharp nod, and he drew his sword.

The soldiers who’d gathered below the walls followed his lead. Their sight should’ve been reassuring, instead they were a painful reminder of how precarious their situation was. Despite making a formidable army, they wouldn’t stand a chance against the numbers descending upon them should they be drawn into the open. Cullen had planned for an attack. He’d trained them for an attack. It never had been for one of this size.

It had never been for one lead by a _monstrosity_.

“You there,” he pointed at the group closest to the gates, “gather the villagers. Fortify and watch for advance forces. The rest of you, get out there, man the trebuchets and hit them with all we’ve got. Inquisition, with the Herald! For your lives! For all of us!”


End file.
